


Die fröhliche Wissenschaft

by zeugmatic



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, College AU, F/F, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeugmatic/pseuds/zeugmatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pin number 2554 gives off an aura of pizza, late night cramming, and trashy erotica novels. Krista thinks she might be a little hot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Die fröhliche Wissenschaft

Work is work, and Krista could never claim that she enjoys spending most of her afternoons sitting at a desk, but she’d also be lying if she said that she didn’t get any pleasure from her job. Mostly it’s from kids, happily dragging their parents along with them; sometimes, it’s from a student like herself, looking overcaffeinated and as though they have three term papers due within the next hour.

She likes her job, and she’s grateful for it. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

“There might be some pizza stains on this one,” says pin number 2554, handing back her fourth book in the past week.

Krista frowns and takes the book gently, vaguely worried that it will contaminate her. “If it’s in bad conditions, we might have to ask you to either pay for it or buy us a new one,” she repeats for the fourth time.

2554 waves her hand flippantly. There are some freckles between her fingers, and Krista chooses to focus on that rather than the obviously bitten nails. “It’s not that bad. Watch out for page thirty eight, though. A pepperoni slice fell onto there.” She cackles to herself, always more amused by her own antics than the rest of the library, and walks away.

The book smells like cheese and Krista breathes deeply through her mouth. She places it in the garbage instead of the returns cart, figuring from the stench alone that it’s beyond salvageable. It’s popular, a book that the library probably has one or two more copies of, so she’s sure no one will miss it.

She marks the book as checked in. Nothing would come of tracking 2554 down and forcing her to buy a new copy, a fact that Krista resigned herself to three books ago.

The garbage is stinking up the entire room, so Krista sighs and leans down to take it out.

\--

Annie Leonhart is cold, apathetic, and hard-hearted enough to shave off the eyebrows of a boy she didn’t like when he was asleep. In high school she was voted Most Likely To Steal Candy From A Baby And Laugh, a title that she’s proud enough of to have printed and framed in her dorm room. Even though she’s all those things, she’s also Krista’s roommate, and probably her best friend.

“I just don’t understand how someone can care so little about the wellbeing of books,” Krista complains that night, lying on her back and frowning at the ceiling.

She doesn’t have to look over to know that Annie shrugs and continues highlighting her way through her textbook. “Tell her to stop.”

Krista sighs and rolls over to her side, so that she’s facing her roommate. “It isn’t that easy. I’m not intimidating like you, so she’d just laugh it off.”

This time, Annie caps her highlighter and places it in the seam of her book, putting both aside. That’s new. “You know, I’m a little impressed with this girl. I’ve never seen you get this exasperated with anything. Not even when you thought taking biomedical engineering would be a good idea.”

There’s an implication that goes along with Annie’s words, and Krista finds herself blushing. “I resent the way she disrespects books, that’s all.”

Annie rolls her eyes. “Bullshit. You want to push her on a bed and go to town, and it frustrates you because you don’t even know her name.”

“She gets pizza on her books. There’s nothing attractive about that,” Krista argues, but the image that pops in her head at Annie’s words is definitely not an unpleasant one.

Her roommate raises her eyebrows and leans forward sagely. “Are you trying to convince me of that, or yourself?”

Krista groans and rolls over to her other side so that she’s facing the wall. She hears the crinkle of paper and figures Annie is back to her schoolwork, done with socializing for the next few days. It’s late now, an acceptable time for her to fall asleep, but she can’t force her heart to slow down.

\--

The next day, Krista sees 2554 in her Psychology 201 class. For a moment or two, she debates going up to her, striking up a conversation and maybe getting to know each other. It’s in a big lecture hall, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t have noticed every other student in her class. They could become friends, and maybe Krista could show her the beauty in books, and maybe they could order pizza together and watch old Disney movies and curl up on the rigid dorm-issued beds—

She sits on the opposite side of the room. 2554 doesn’t notice.

When Mikasa Ackerman (Annie’s on-and-off girlfriend, currently off but who knows how long that will last) sits down next to her, she raises an eyebrow. “I thought you like being closer to the teacher.”

Krista shrugs and giggles nervously. “You have to switch it up every once in a while.”

Mikasa, looking completely unconvinced, stares at her for a bit. It’s unnerving and Krista wonders why she and Annie even bother dating when they’re the same person sometimes.

Throughout class, Krista shoots glances to 2554. She looks asleep for most of it, in a way that is entirely conspicuous and ungraceful, and Krista feels her stomach tingle.

“Are you going to tell me why you were zoning out all class instead of taking thirty pages of notes as usual?” Mikasa’s voice breaks her from her daze.

She makes a noise of indignance.

Realizing that’s all the answer she’s going to get, Mikasa shrugs. “I’m not saying I want you to, I’m just asking if you’re going to.”

Krista shoots a look at her watch, then around the hall. Class ended a minute ago, and people are packing up their things. She took three bullet points of notes through the entire class.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispers and rests her head in her hands. Mikasa lets her sit there in peace.

Being a concerned semi-friend, Mikasa walks Krista to the library when she’s emotionally ready for it. Her shift doesn’t start for another half hour, but she might as well wallow in self misery there rather than where Annie can see and make various I-told-you-so faces.

“You’re lucky you have Annie,” she says.

“We broke up,” Mikasa reminds her.

“Sure you did,” Krista mumbles.

Mikasa leaves and Krista is alone, staring at the library the way man stares into an abyss, and she wonders if she should take up Nietzsche.

\--

Today, it’s lesbian erotica.

“I don’t have an excuse for this one,” 2554 admits, handing over a copy of _Brianna: A Virgin Lesbian Sex Tale_. “It was very unrealistic. I’m kind of disappointed.”

Krista blinks at it for a few moments, agape and probably resembling a startled fish. “Is it damaged in any way?” she forces out weakly.

2554, for the first time in probably her entire life, finds it in her to look somewhat embarrassed. “Well, there was this one scene that wasn’t, you know, quite so bad, and I may have ripped it out. For science reasons.”

While she’s blushing, 2554’s freckles stand out even more against her usually dark skin, and Krista hears a small part of her brain whispering that God is dead.

“Where do these books keep coming from?” Krista asks, her voice desperate.

The patron taps her fingers against the counter. “I mostly get them in the morning. I’m a fast reader, anyway, so by the time I’m done with them it’s usually your shift, and you’re easily flustered.” She winks, now, the blush still on her cheeks. “It’s cute.”

Most of the other librarians are over the age of forty, so Krista knows it isn’t exactly a great accomplishment that she’s the one being seeked out. Still, she feels her own face begin to flush. “You’re unusually destructive with your books,” she says, ignoring the backhanded compliment.

“That isn’t a question,” 2554 observes.

“No,” Krista answers. “It’s not.”

When 2554 leaves, Krista jumps up from her seat. She checks to make sure no one is in the library and she turns the “open” sign to “closed.” Then, she takes a deep breath, and she walks to the Adult room.

It’s no different in there from the rest of the library, despite her fears. Most of the books look like trashy harlequin novels, but then again, so do the Young Adult books. She walks quietly and cautiously to the back shelf of the room, and stares at the plaque above it: Gay/Lesbian Erotica.

Her eyes scan through the books for something that seems at least relatively classy, but she comes up dry. She closes her eyes and gives herself a pep talk. After opening them, she goes through the shelf again, and ignores her better judgement as she leans to pick up _Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch Femme Erotica_.

The anthology trembles in her hands as she turns it around to read the back. Mostly, she skims, until she comes to a line that makes her heart stop in her chest. “In Joy Parks's delicious _Sweet Thing_ , the new femme librarian in town shows a butch baker a new trick in bed.” The book slides from her hands and she stares blankly at where it used to be.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she whispers as she bends down to pick the novel up. Her heart starts up again, at double normal rate, and she opens to the table of contents. She finds the page _Sweet Thing_ , dogears it, and takes it back with her.

\--

“God is dead and we killed him,” Krista announces as she swings the door open to her room. Vaguely disappointed by the lack of response to her uncharacteristic melodramatics, she frowns and turns the light on. Annie’s passed out on her bed, mysteriously devoid of all clothing, with Mikasa wrapped around her.

“Turn that back off,” Annie mutters, pulling the sheets up past everything that needs to be covered. Mikasa hums in agreement and buries her face in the tangled mess that is Annie’s hair outside of a bun.

“It’s six o’clock,” Krista complains, but she does what they say. Annie flips her off and she leaves the room.

Krista doesn’t know what to do with herself. She feels the way a person must feel after running over a baby with a steamroller, and she was counting on Annie to listen to her and tell her that she’s fucked up. There’s no way she can go back to the library now, and the next shift already started, anyway. Suddenly she wishes she had made more friends besides Annie, Annie’s girlfriend, and Annie’s brother.

She pauses. Visiting Reiner is a valid option. Sure, he might ask her to marry him every time they’re in the same room, but he’s still a friend. Kind of.

A friend who belongs to a party frat, she reminds herself, and crosses him off the list.

It’s dinner time, anyway. She might as well just go out to dinner, maybe eat with that nice Sasha girl from her Fiction Writing class if she’s there—which she will be, considering Sasha—and make new friends. She has to learn to be self-reliant.

“What are you looking so pensive about?” calls a voice from down the hall.

The blood in her veins freezes. Krista would recognize that voice anywhere. “2554,” she whispers to herself as she looks up.

2554 walks towards her. “What was that?” she asks, sounding amused.

Krista stands like a deer in headlights. “It’s your pin number. On your library card, I mean. 2554,” she explains, her voice rushed and breathy.

Pin number 2554 ducks her head, trying to hide a blush. She’s really tall, Krista realizes now that they’re both standing; that, or Krista is just really short, which is also a distinct possibility. “I have a name, you know. It’s Ymir,” she says, trying to sounds cool and failing miserably, which turns on Krista a lot more than it should.

“Um, why are you here?” Krista asks. “In a not-rude way, I mean.”

“I asked you first,” Ymir reminds her.

Coming up with a blank, Krista blinks. “I live here?” She gestures at the room behind her.

Ymir snorts. “No, I asked why you looked so pensive.”

“Oh. My roommate and her girlfriend kicked me out, and I was trying to think of what I should do.”

“Ah,” Ymir says.

“Yeah,” Krista answers.

They’re silent for a minute. “I was looking for my roommate, and her friend said she might be here. At her girlfriend’s room,” Ymir explains, rolling onto the heels of her feet.

The silence now is more permanent as the two of them make the connection.

“I took out lesbian erotica,” Krista blurts out.

Ymir blinks, looking an interesting mix of confused, startled, and amused. “Can you say that again?”

Krista blushes the same color as the Spider-man shirt that Ymir’s wearing. “You brought in that book today and I felt overwhelmed, but it was a sort of good kind of overwhelmed, like my entire body was going to explode at any moment, but also in a good way. And somehow that ended up with me in the Adult section of the library, for the first time ever, looking for something that would make me feel like that, and I found a book with a lesbian librarian and I got it, and now I feel gross because I’ve already masturbated to it twice. In two different bathrooms.”

Neither of them say anything for a moment. Krista breathes heavily, allows her words to catch up to her, and feels horrified with herself. Then, Ymir snickers. “Was that seriously your first time even in the Adult section? Don’t you work in the library?”

That is not the reaction Krista expected, but she’ll take it. “I always make other people put away those books when they’re checked back in. They make me feel uncomfortable,” she mumbles.

Now Ymir is almost doubled over. “Oh my God, you couldn’t even bring yourself to touch porn and then you got yourself off to it _twice_ because you identified with some fictional lady, this is incredible,” she forces out between peals of laughter.

“You don’t have to laugh,” Krista says, feeling humiliated in every sense of the word.

Ymir grasps onto her shoulder as she tries to calm herself down. It takes her a few moments. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling pretty great about myself right now.”

Krista frowns up at her, ignoring the hand. “I don’t see why that is.”

The hand slides down and then Ymir’s entire arm is around Krista, making her jump. “Well, not every day do I sexually frustrate the cute girl I’ve been trying to interest enough that she has an actual out-of-body experience.”

“It wasn’t sexual frustration, it was something more,” Krista insists, but she leans against Ymir further.

“Sure it was,” Ymir says.

A second later, Krista realizes something. “The cute girl you’ve been trying to interest?”

Ymir squeezes her shoulders. “Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.”

“You just quoted Nietzsche,” Krista says.

“Yes, I did.”

“I quoted Nietzsche twice today.”

“The first book I mutilated for you was _The Gay Science_ ,” Ymir reminds her.

Krista raises her eyebrows. “For me?”

“Well, duh. Did you really think I somehow managed to drop Harry Potter in the bathtub? Do people read in bathtubs? Actually, does this campus even have bathtubs?”

Krista is giggling now, pressing her face into Ymir’s chest to keep it from being obvious, though the vibrations surely give her away. It’s warm there, and Krista can feel the crease of cleavage where she burrows her nose, so she presses her lips against the cloth there. It’s impulsive, it’s barely even a kiss, but it’s something. Ymir presses her hand against Krista’s face and lifts it up. They fumble a little bit, and Ymir's mouth lands a little closer to Krista's nostrils than she intended, but it's okay. This much they can do.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure where this came from, but I think I just needed it in my life. The title (which translates to "The Gay Science") is stolen from Nietzsche because I am both pretentious and easily amused. Also, in case you were curious, all of the novels mentioned do exist and were found in a quick "lesbian erotica novels" google search.
> 
> A million apologies for how long it's been since I've updated But I'm A Cheerleader, and I pinky promise it will be within the next two weeks, though to be honest I haven't actually looked at it in the past month because I've been working on a yumikuri ballet AU (don't question it) which has taken over my life.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked this! You can find me at ymirkrista.tumblr.com if you ever want to talk about poor gay baby girl Historia Reiss with me.


End file.
